DIY High Speed Book Scanner – digitise your book library on the cheap cheap

This DIY High Speed Book Scanner is genius incarnate. It uses low cost materials – around $300 if you’re a good scavenger – and offers manual twin page scanning fast enough to do an average book in 20 minutes. Two cameras, two lights, a DIY book platen with perspex lid and that’s it. It’s efficient, simple, eco friendly and comes with some open source software for converting from images into PDF. Lovely stuff. Video.

After suffering through scanning many of my old, rare, and government issue books, I decided to create a book scanner that anybody could make, for around $300. And that’s what this instructable is all about. A greener future with more books rather than fewer books. More access to information, rather than less access to information. And maybe, years from now, a reformed publishing/distribution model (but I’m not holding my breath…).